LIGHTS OUT BLACKOUTS HIT NORTHERN CALIFORNIA, MOST OF STATE COULD GO DARK TODAY ...Byline: Dana Bartholomew Staff Writer After the first day of blackouts cut power to communities across Northern California Northern California, sometimes referred to as NorCal, is the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. The region contains the San Francisco Bay Area, the state capital, Sacramento; as well as the substantial natural beauty of the redwood forests, the northern on Wednesday, Gov. Gray Davis signed an emergency order aimed at fending off utility bankruptcy and further outages. A half-million residents had sputtered into darkness earlier during the state's first energy blackouts since World War II. A blackout alert for Southern California Southern California, also colloquially known as SoCal, is the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Centered on the cities of Los Angeles and San Diego, Southern California is home to nearly 24 million people and is the nation's second most populated region, was called but no outages were ordered. Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. , Burbank and Glendale, all with separate generating systems, were not affected. With supplies short and utilities bereft of cash or credit to buy electricity, officials warned that circumstances today and Friday could be worse - millions of people across California could be left without power for an hour at a stretch. ``We are doing our best to manage power in California, but we've come to the end of the road,'' said Jim Detmers, managing director of the California Independent System Operator, which directs power throughout the state. ``We do have the possibility after 7 a.m. (today) of getting into this situation again.'' The blackouts Wednesday left 500,000 residents - from San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf Fisherman's Wharf may refer to:
Napa Valley greatest wine-producing region of the United States. [Am. Hist.: NCE, 2990] See : Wine to high-tech Silicon Valley offices - without juice for up to 90 minutes starting at 11:40 a.m. As offices turned dark, customers of Southern California Edison Southern California Edison (or SCE Corp), the largest subsidiary of Edison International (NYSE: EIX), is the primary electricity supply company for much of Southern California. It provides 11 million people with electricity. monitored the menace like an advancing prairie fire. The day began with a Stage 3 power alert, indicating that energy reserves had dwindled below 1 1/2 percent for the third time in a week. Energy officials blamed the shortage on a ``perfect storm'' of problems - including more-than-expected generators down for repair; lack of water needed to run hydroelectric turbines; and higher energy use across a cold- strapped Pacific Northwest. Concern about potential bankruptcy of California's largest utilities also led suppliers to rat-hole electricity despite an emergency federal order to sell excess power to the state, Detmers said. Credit ratings for SoCal Edison and Pacific Gas & Electric had tanked to junk bond junk bond, a bond that involves greater than usual risk as an investment and pays a relatively high rate of interest, typically issued by a company lacking an established earnings history or having a questionable credit history. status Tuesday because of an inability to pay billions in debts incurred by state energy deregulation Deregulation The reduction or elimination of government power in a particular industry, usually enacted to create more competition within the industry. Notes: Traditional areas that have been deregulated are the telephone and airline industries. . Northern California suffered Wednesday's blackout because a transmission choke point In military strategy, a choke point (or chokepoint) is a geographical feature (such as a valley or defile) which forces an army to go into a narrower formation (greatly decreasing combat power) in order to pass through it. prevented juice from flowing north from Southern California, ISO (1) See ISO speed. (2) (International Organization for Standardization, Geneva, Switzerland, www.iso.ch) An organization that sets international standards, founded in 1946. The U.S. member body is ANSI. officials said. The Southland was saved from blackouts by an energy purchase by the state Department of Water Resources and an evening power surge from Canada and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) is the largest municipal utility in the United States, serving 3.9 million residents in 2006. It was founded in 1902 to deliver water and electricity supplies to residents and businesses in Los Angeles. . Throughout the day Wednesday, Gov. Gray Davis and key legislators from both houses worked on a short-term fix for what most say is a long-term energy dilemma. Just before 9 p.m., the governor declared a state of emergency calling for the Department of Water Resources to contract with suppliers to purchase power and alleviate the shortage. ``The whole purpose of this is a bridge to a long-term solution,'' Davis told reporters. Several wholesalers have threatened to drive the state's utilities into involuntary bankruptcy involuntary bankruptcy Bankruptcy that is forced by creditors instead of being initiated by the firm or individual. Compare voluntary bankruptcy. See also Chapter 7, Chapter 11. today. To speed a resolution to the crisis, the Legislature also met in a special session Wednesday afternoon to vote on bills to restructure the ISO board free of industry stakeholders and to require state utilities to hold on to their power plants. State power regulators will meet today for the first time since they granted rate increases to PG&E and SoCal Edison earlier this month. But the agenda does little to address the state's expanding power crisis. Instead, the Public Utility Commission plans to discuss a SoCal Edison proposal for a rate increase and other regulatory proposals. A Senate energy committee is slated to meet today to consider a measure to allow the credit-worthy state Water Resources Department to contract with energy suppliers at lower rates and resell power to consumers via the utilities. The bill - controversial among power suppliers and consumer advocates - is expected to hit the governor's desk by the end of the month. Energy suppliers say the 5 1/2-cent-per-kilowatt-hour limit - one-sixth the going rate - fails to pay the cost of energy. Consumer advocates say the measure violates the California Constitution by bailing out utilities at taxpayer expense. Legislators, however, call some version of the proposal one step in restoring stability to California's energy fix. ``This is kind of the first volley in our effort to address the crisis,'' said state Sen. Richard Alarcon, D-Van Nuys, who sits on the Senate energy committee. ``It's certainly not a total solution.'' While Alarcon doubted most suppliers would settle for the nickel offer, he said it was important to permit state agencies to buy power on the spot market and to consider a state power authority to manage power within the state. State Sen. Sheila Kuehl, D-Santa Monica, said it was vital to prevent utilities from sliding into bankruptcy - and an ensuing war over assets such as generating plants by out-of-state ``vulture vulture, common name for large birds of prey of temperate and tropical regions. The Old World vultures (family Accipitridae) are allied to hawks and eagles; the more ancient American vultures and condors are of a different family (Cathartidae) with distant links to groups.'' ``This is a desperate situation,'' Kuehl said. ``We're at the mercy of out-of-state generators.'' |
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